Educators urge patience with new funding outcomes
By Christina Lengyel | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – Educators and families say the recent infusion of school funding from the state is helping. When evidence of that will show up in the metrics, which of those results matters remains a thorny question for the legislature.
The House Education Committee started the legislative season with a wide-reaching informational hearing loosely centered around the state’s Future Ready Index. The index provides detailed profiles for individual schools across the state with demographics and a variety of performance measures.
One area all parties seem to agree on is that standardized testing alone can’t capture student success, and importantly, centering teaching around testing isn’t effective.
Administrators and legislators alike are frustrated by the multi-layered demands of federal, state, and local assessments, all of which use data points from common tests like the PSSAs differently to measure success against goals.
For this reason, metrics like graduation, attendance and career measures are also included within the new index framework.
“You need to be looking at it in a holistic way,” said Dr. Carrie Rowe, deputy secretary of the Department of Education. She says that the new model presented by the index gives viewers the flexibility to see different types of success and compare schools from several different viewpoints.
The standardized test scores currently reflected on the index were measured before the new funding formula and additional budget went into effect at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year. Educators say it will take time for things to catch up.
“We are seeing modest gains year over year in each of our tested areas,” said Rowe, noting that the state hasn’t gotten back to pre-pandemic levels.
“There are a lot of children who have fallen through a gap who still don’t have math skills and reading skills,” said Rep. Gina Curry, D-Upper Darby. Of particular note is the group of students who were in crucial the third and fourth grade during the 2020-2021 school year – when COVID-19 shutdowns went into effect – and who are now entering high school with a deficit.
Even those who started school after the pandemic may see a lag before new curricula start to pay off. Rowe used structured literacy as an example, saying that “we know” it’s going to work, but it takes time for schools to learn and implement the new model and money to develop teachers’ skill sets. Across the state, schools are at varying stages of that process.
The same can be said for the Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy & Sustainability, or STEELS, standards adopted in 2022.
Perhaps one of the quickest measures of success for new education initiatives is the response educators receive from parents who see the day-to-day impact on their children. Sylvia Richbow is a parent to two students in the Chester-Upland school district who praised the additional funding their schools have received.
Thanks to the new model, the district was able to hire more special needs staff, of which there had been only one previously. She says the additional support has helped her daughter, who is diagnosed with autism, to succeed.
Meanwhile, she’s seen her son – who was in the cohort of elementary students who missed essential foundational instruction during quarantine – has shown improvement in math.
Still, Chester-Upland has a way to go.
“We need more books, more libraries, more preschool slots, and we also have significant facility needs,” Richbow said while describing schools struggling with HVAC systems from the 1960s and drop ceiling tiles falling onto high school students in the hallways.
To make those changes, the state still has a $4.5 billion funding gap to overcome, a challenge Attorney Maura McInereny of Education Law Center said needs to happen in a shorter time frame than the projected eight years.
Rep. Barbara Gleim, R-Carlisle, questioned the state’s ability to determine whether the additional funds are having the intended effect.
“We don’t know if those dollars are actually having an impact unless we have some sort of an accountability measure,” she said.
“When you look at those investments are when you have adequately funded your schools year after year,” said McIreny. “It’s critically important to recognize that this is a cumulative game.”
